The present invention relates to driver circuits for plasma panels and similar matrix display devices. The invention more particularly pertains to circuitry for coupling sustain, write and erase signals to the row and column conductors defining the crosspoint cells of such display devices.
Plasma panels and similar matrix display devices comprise a coordinate array of crosspoint display cells defined by mutually orthogonal sets of row and column conductors. A selected cell is switched into an on or off (light-emitting or non-light-emitting, energized or non-energized) state via the application of specially-adapted write and erase voltages to the cell in question. Alternating polarity "sustain" voltages of magnitude V.sub.s are impressed across each cell to maintain cells which are in the on state in that state. These sustain signals do not affect the states of cells which are off, however.
Sustain, write and erase voltages are impressed across a given cell of the display device, or panel, by coupling them to the row conductor and column conductor which define the cell. Driver circuits or more simply, drivers, each connected to an associated row or column conductor are provided for this purpose. The driver circuits must be able to conduct sustain signal current both to and from the associated conductor and must be able to handle relatively large signals with little voltage loss. Desirably, driver circuits for these panels should also be readily amenable to inexpensive integrated circuit fabrication.